A History of Public Sector Pensions in the United States

A History of Public Sector Pensions in the United States
Author: Robert Louis Clark
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2003-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780812237146

From the Wharton School, offering a comprehensive assessment of the political and financial dimensions of public-sector pensions from the colonial period until the emergence of modern retirement plans in the twentieth century.

Pensions in the Public Sector

Pensions in the Public Sector
Author: Olivia S. Mitchell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 692
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780812235784

From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, this book explores the diversity of governmental pension plans and investigates how these financial institutions must change in years to come.

U.S. Public Pension Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Trustees and Investment Staff

U.S. Public Pension Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Trustees and Investment Staff
Author: Von M. Hughes
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2019-07-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1260134776

The first comprehensive guide to mastering the roles and responsibilities of a public pension fiduciary in the U.S. In an ever-changing financial and political landscape, your job as a public pension fiduciary continues to get more difficult. Now, you have the help you need. U.S. Public Pension Handbook is the only one-stop resource that covers the various areas of public pension governance, investment management, infrastructure, accounting, and law. This comprehensive guide presents critical data, information, and insights in topic-specific, easy-to-understand ways—providing the knowledge you need to elevate your expertise and overall contribution to your pension plan or system. U.S. Public Pension Handbook covers:•Today’s domestic and global public pension marketplace•The ins and outs of the defined benefit model, the defined contribution, and hybrid pension designs•Financial concepts central to the actuarial valuation of pension benefits•Public pension investment policies and philosophies•Asset allocations and how they have changed over time•State and local government pension contribution policies•The impact of governance structure and board composition on organizational results•Fiduciary responsibility and the general legal/regulatory framework governing trustees•How changes in trust law may affect public pension trustee fiduciary responsibility and liability•Best practices in pension governance and organizational designPublic pension trustees are the unsung heroes of the world of finance, collectively managing over $6 trillion in retirement assets in this country alone. U.S. Public Pension Handbook provides the grounding you need to make sure you perform your all-important with the utmost expertise and professionalism.

State and Local Pensions

State and Local Pensions
Author: Alicia H. Munnell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012-08-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815724136

In the wake of the financial crisis and Great Recession, the health of state and local pension plans has emerged as a front burner policy issue. Elected officials, academic experts, and the media alike have pointed to funding shortfalls with alarm, expressing concern that pension promises are unsustainable or will squeeze out other pressing government priorities. A few local governments have even filed for bankruptcy, with pensions cited as a major cause. Alicia H. Munnell draws on both her practical experience and her research to provide a broad perspective on the challenge of state and local pensions. She shows that the story is big and complicated and cannot be viewed through a narrow prism such as accounting methods or the role of unions. By examining the diversity of the public plan universe, Munnell debunks the notion that all plans are in trouble. In fact, she finds that while a few plans are basket cases, many are functioning reasonably well. Munnell's analysis concludes that the plans in serious trouble need a major overhaul. But even the relatively healthy plans face three challenges ahead: an excessive concentration of plan assets in equities; the risk that steep benefit cuts for new hires will harm workforce quality; and the constraints plans face in adjusting future benefits for current employees. Here, Munnell proposes solutions that preserve the main strengths of state and local pensions while promoting needed reforms.

State and Local Pension Fund Management

State and Local Pension Fund Management
Author: Jun Peng
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2008-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0849305519

Intense media coverage of the public pension funding crisis continues to fuel heightened awareness in and debate over public pension benefits. With over $3 trillion in assets currently under management, the ramifications of poor oversight are severe. It is important that practitioners, researchers, and taxpayers be well-advised regarding any concer

Pensions at a Glance 2019 OECD and G20 Indicators

Pensions at a Glance 2019 OECD and G20 Indicators
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2019-11-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9264876103

The 2019 edition of Pensions at a Glance highlights the pension reforms undertaken by OECD countries over the last two years. Moreover, two special chapters focus on non-standard work and pensions in OECD countries, take stock of different approaches to organising pensions for non-standard workers in the OECD, discuss why non-standard work raises pension issues and suggest how pension settings could be improved.

Children and Pensions

Children and Pensions
Author: Alessandro Cigno
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2007
Genre: Child welfare
ISBN: 0262033690

An analysis of the effect of public pension schemes on a country's fertility rate and a proposal for policies to reform pension coverage in light of this. The rapidly aging populations of many developed countries--most notably Japan and member countries of the European Union--present obvious problems for the public pension plans of these countries. Not only will there be disproportionately fewer workers making pension contributions than there are retirees drawing pension benefits, but the youth-to-age imbalance would significantly affect the total contributive capacity of future generations and hence their total income growth. In Children and Pensions, Alessandro Cigno and Martin Werding examine the way pension policy and child-related benefits affect fertility behavior and productivity growth. They present theoretical arguments to the effect that public pension coverage as such will reduce aggregate fertility and may raise aggregate household savings. They argue further that public pensions, as they are currently designed, discourage parents from private human capital investment in their children to improve the children's future earning capacity. After an overview of pension and child benefit policies (focusing on the European Union, Japan, and the United States), the authors offer an empirical and theoretical analysis and a simulation of the effects of the policies under discussion. Their policy proposals to address declines in fertility and productivity growth include the innovative suggestion that relates a person's pension entitlements to his or her number of children and the children's earning ability--proposing that, in effect, a person's pension could be financed in part or in full by the pensioner's own children.

Pension Ponzi

Pension Ponzi
Author: Bill Tufts
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2011-01-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118098730

The vast majority of Canadians are blissfully unaware that every man, woman and child in Canada now owes a $35,000 share of government debt and must pay this back, with interest! Make no mistake, this debt will change our country and affect every single Canadian in the decades to come. You may think you have planned for your retirement and are safe, but the government must find a way to recover this borrowed money, and they can only do that by raising your taxes and reducing your hard-earned benefits. How did this debt come about, and why can't we simply pay it off? Pension Ponzi lays the blame squarely at the feet of the politicians who refused to stand up to Canada's public sector unions. The fact is Canada's public sector, which accounts for 20% of the workforce, has been grossly overpaid relative to their counterparts in the private sector with cushy pensions paid for with your taxes and new debt. There is no denying that the country does not have the financial resources to ensure that the next generation of Canadians will have the same standard of living as the ones before it-or to support our growing seniors population. Meeting our public sector pension obligations will break the current social safety net that is a pillar of the Canadian way. Can you escape this bleak future? Can you afford to live longer? Nationally-recognized pension expert Bill Tufts and award-winning journalist Lee Fairbanks explore how this catastrophe came about and then suggest ways that government can fix what's broken, and how you as an individual can protect yourself from the financial calamity that is about to engulf Canada.

Pensions at a Glance 2021 OECD and G20 Indicators

Pensions at a Glance 2021 OECD and G20 Indicators
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-12-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9264641335

The 2021 edition of Pensions at a Glance highlights the pension reforms undertaken by OECD countries over the past two years. Moreover, the special chapter focuses on automatic adjustment mechanisms in pensions systems in OECD countries, discusses the usefulness and limitations of these policy instruments, and suggests ways to improve them in order to enhance the capacity of pension systems to fulfil their objectives.

Governance and Investment of Public Pension Assets

Governance and Investment of Public Pension Assets
Author: Sudhir Rajkumar
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2011
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0821384708

And key messages -- Key principles of governance and investment management -- Governance of public pension assets -- Governance structures and accountabilities -- Qualification, selection, and operation of governing bodies -- Operational policies and procedures -- Managing fiscal pressures in defined-benefit schemes -- Policy responses to turbulent financial markets -- Investment of public pension assets -- Defining the investment policy framework for public pension funds -- Managing risk for different cohorts in defined-contribution schemes -- An asset-liability approach to strategic asset allocation for pension funds -- In-house investment versus outsourcing to external investment managers -- International investments and managing the resulting currency risk -- Alternative asset classes and new investment themes.